Catnip and Cuddles
by Cougar'sCatnip
Summary: Roque warned them but since when does anyone ever listen to him?
1. Chapter 1

"What the..." Clay stopped in the doorway eyes wide in bemusement as his normally placid sniper rolled around on the rug rubbing his face against his flailing teammate's chest.

"Colonel! Get him off me!" Jensen wailed.

Clay frowned. "Cougar! Get the hell off Jensen... now!"

Cougar glanced over at their CO and yawned, his whiskers spreading and fangs glistening, then he turned back and placed broad paws on Jensen's shoulders to hold him down and rubbed his chin along Jake's jawline. His golden eyes blinked languidly as the tech squawked and pushed futilely against his bulk. Lowering his head he sniffed delicately then lapped the soft skin of Jake's neck.

Jensen gave a squeak of alarm. "Ouch, ouch-that tongue is rough, Claaaa-aaay-"

Taking the collar of Jensen's shirt between his teeth he tugged at it until with a quiet rip it tore. Cougar purred as the fabric fluttered to the floor and bit by bit he shredded the tech's shirt until he was bare chested and the warmth of his body was radiating against Cougar's belly.

Jensen put his hand right in front of Cougar's muzzle, bumping his nose sharply, as if he thought he was banging a shark on the nose.

*Not* how you handle a big cat in a mood.

Clay took a step forward, alarmed.

The sniper just snorted, chuffed happily at the pushy hand, and rubbed against his fingers.

Cougar's purring was so ridiculously loud Clay could hear it from across the room. But when the big cat dropped his head and began to nuzzle Jensen in a more intimate manner Clay knew it was time to put a stop to things before he saw something that would require a scrub brush and massive amounts of bleach to get out of his mind.

Clay stomped forward and pushed on Cougar's shoulder trying to get him to move but the big cat just tucked his ears and hunched down with a quiet sneer at the Colonel's efforts.

Clay stopped and eyed him with suspicion. "Jensen, what the hell did you give him?!"

"Me? Why do you think I gave him anything?!"

"Man, it reeks of nip in here," Roque's voice growled as he came out of the kitchen scratching his nose. "Hate that damn stink."

Clay turned to his SIC when he appeared in the doorway. "What did you say?"

Roque frowned. "I said the fucking kitchen stinks of nip." He paused at the confused look on the Colonel's face. "Catnip, Clay. Somebody laced the fucking brownies with catnip and from the looks of it, our dumbass sniper damn near ate the whole batch himself." Roque folded his arms, shook his head, and spoke at the catpile on the floor. "I warned ya didn't I, Cougar? And now look at ya, rolling around like some damn fool kitten."

He turned back to Clay, "Other night I had that little 'come-to-Jesus' talk with the boys about sniffing shit, sign off on that workshop stuff the General wanted from us. Talk about reverse psychology, you tell him 'don't!' and that dumbass sniper will go off and do the opposite. 'Oh no, I'll never hurt anybody'," Roque twisted his voice to mimic the sniper's Tex-mex accent.  
He huffed as Cougar snuffled Jake's neck and went back to licking the tech while he tried to squirm away. "He's got some idea he's better 'n that and he can take anything we throw at him and still run the show, cool as he always is, like his cat's got nothin' to say about it."

Roque rolled his eyes as Cougar chirped happily and rubbed his head along Jake's jaw again. "Ain't so cool now, huh, Cougar? I warned all you guys that it's not just all these new stinkweed strains of medical marijuana they've started breeding stronger than when you was a kitten. But nooo, you're too fuckin' stubborn to listen."

He crouched down to peer into the sniper's eyes. "Huh. Man, lookit those pupils, he's stoned as a mackerel tabby. Don't piss him off, Jensen, he'll bite ya as soon as look at ya."

Cougar flattened his ears and bristled his whiskers forward at Roque, though he didn't actually open his mouth and outright hiss at the LT. Instead, he rolled his head down into Jensen's bare shoulder and nudged his nose into the tech's collarbone, muttering high little noises down in his throat, pawing gently at Jake's arm while keeping his claws sheathed...almost kittenish in his antics.

And Jake bought it, fell for his act hook, line and sinker. "Ah, now, c'mon, sniperkitty, calm down, it's all right," Jake said, and brought his hands around to Cougar's back.

Cougar chuffed at him happily when Jensen ran his fingers through the fur of Cougar's ruff, along his cheeks and behind his ears, scratching with his full strength against Cougar's neck, as Cougar leaned into it harder. The sniper's eyes practically rolled up into his head with ecstasy, and that really wasn't a reassuring sight. Drunk Cougar never got this out of it before he turned into a brawler as bad as anything Roque had ever pulled, and he'd never let them see him toke out, although there were some ugly stories.

As a cat, Cougar never let anybody pet his neck or play with his ears or pretend he had any of the sweet spots of a regular housecat. Oh no. But now Cougar made some strange groaning noises and high little yelps, twisting around to present other parts of his head, until he'd fallen off Jake and was laying on his back, chin up under Jake's hands, paws flopping in the air. Jake could have tried to get up and run away, but he made no effort to get off the floor. He just kept scrubbing off wads of shed fur, while Cougar twisted around in undignified postures, enjoying himself.

"Dumbass," Roque said.

Clay drew back a little, reluctant to watch, and even more reluctant to leave Jensen to the mercies of a sniper who was so completely off the leash and out of it. He glanced over at Roque, "Go get Cougar's hairbrush. Give to Jake. He can use that to get Cougar to calm down, and maybe get him to sleep it off."

"Tell you what, I'm getting a camera too," Roque said, and turned down the hallway.

Clay grinned at him. "I like that plan."

"That's cause you're evil like me," Roque yelled back from the bedrooms.

Clay looked at the cat on the floor, who had rolled onto his other side and was kneading his claws into the side of sofa, tearing shreds of fabric off the arm, while Jensen scratched up and down the cat's spine.

"Yeah, that's good," Jake said, grinning. "What, right there? Or there? You wanna get brushed now, huh? C'mon, Cougs, talk to me. Tell me what you want."

And the cat made odd wailing noises, turning his head just as if he was talking. And then Cougar looked directly at Clay and chuffed at him. He bristled up his whiskers and grinned, and that was it. Cougar was squinting up his eyes in that sneaky sly look he got when he was getting away with shit and he knew it, and Clay knew it, and there was nothing Clay could do about it. "Rowww owww row oww," he yowled at Jensen.

"Outstanding," Clay said dryly.


	2. Chapter 2

Ch. 2: The Kitty of DOOM

"When he sees that he is gonna kill you, bro. You know that, right?" Pooch said gesturing at Roque's camera.

Jensen rolled his eyes and snapped another shot. "Which one? Roque or Cougs?" 

Pooch chuckled. "Either one," he paused and then added. "Or both, but Roque will definitely kill you if he catches you using that camera without permission." 

"Why would he, when I'm the one who fixes it for him every time it gets dust in the zoom mechanism?" 

"Oh, you mean when you bring it back to my shop to ask me to blow it clean?"

Jensen waved a hand dismissively. "Semantics! And hey, speaking of cleaning, he's gonna be more pissed off at Cougar than me when he sees that mess, especially if he's the one who has to clean it up."

"Nah bro, he'll just make Cougs do it."

"Pffft, I'd like to see him make Cougar do anything he doesn't want to, stubborn lil git," Jensen scoffed.

Pooch snorted. "Yeah, you got a point there." He looked out at the mess in the back yard and grinned.

Bits of shredded cardboard were scattered across the tiny lawn and laying in all the chairs. In the remains of a large box their sniper was curled up, basking in the sun. All they could see of him was the tips of his ears over the top of the remaining wall and his tail, which was draped over the side facing them. The tip of his tail idly twitched back and forth-and crouched below it, Beth's kitten was watching the mesmerizing back-and-forth swing of that tawny tuft of fur.

Baaaack and forth.

Irresistible.

"Go get him, lil kitty!" Jensen crouched low, snapping a whole series of stills that captured the kitten making mighty leaps that missed completely.

The tail metronome didn't seem to change, but somehow her calculations were completely off. Just like when stupid humans went sparring with the guy, and somehow all the exercise was on them, not on Cougar's lazy, lazy paws.

"C'mon, are you sure he's asleep out there?" Pooch asked as once again the kitten jumped and the enticing tail twitched out of her grip at the last second. 

"Oh, yeah, he soaks up some good hot sun for ten minutes and he's off in zen kittyland. That tail twitch? He does that shit in his sleep," Jensen said.

Pooch grunted. JJ would know, if anybody did.

Cougar's ears weren't even swiveling the way they usually did, alert to every sounds in the area, but then they were home on leave, so he obviously felt safe enough to have fallen deeply asleep. Jensen grinned. Man, Carlos was in for one hell of a surprise when that baby caught his tail.

The kitten backed off, bunched her hindquarters, her pouncing muscles quivering as she shifted her weight back and forth to ensure good footing.

Jensen eased the sliding glass door open and dropped his voice to a whisper so as not to alert the sleeping shifter. The camera began to whir softly. "Now we expect there will be some stalking first, maybe she goes after it once-aaaand the first shot is a miss- and she tries again but it moves and she backs away, rethinks her plan...wait for it...wait for it...then pounce. Yeah, he's gotta be sound asleep and then bam! and he about jumps out of his skin. Baby claws and teeth are SHARP!"

Pooch snorted, his shoulders shaking as he tried to hold in the laughter.

Jensen continued with the narration, "And look, Cougar jerks his tail towards him and there goes kitty flying through the air to land- oh man, right smack on his head- which makes him even more disoriented- yep, there she goes-she's all puffed up and bouncing on his head, spitting and hissing the whole time- not sure who caught who."

Jensen briefly swung the camera to capture Pooch, who wasn't even trying to keep his laughter quiet any more, tears gathered in the corner of his eyes as he clutched his stomach. And then he swung his video shot back to the kitten, zooming in on her yowling.

Jake lost control as Cougar leapt to his feet and spun around and around trying to dislodge the kitten who was clinging to his head. Cougar's yowl drowned out the laughter as she tried to climb up his face. She made it, perching on top of his head like the queen of all she surveyed. With a final swing of his head, the kitten tumbled off to land between his feet and he realized his attacker wasn't even the size of his paw. The camera zoomed right in to capture that indignity too.

The whirring zoom noise did it. It clearly brought Cougar back to the fact that Jensen and Pooch were still laughing at him. He glared over at the house, where Jake had slid down the wall, letting the camera run itself. Jake was sitting leaning against the wall, his face red and tears of mirth in his eyes, while Pooch bent over double, still trying to catch his breath.

"That's one way to get him out of the box!" Pooch wheezed.

The calculation on Cougar's face was perfectly clear. Now he had a pissed-off kitten and these laughing teammates-what better way to get back at them, than to set her on them? He leaned down, considering the tiny fuzzball. Her back arched and her tail resembled a bottle brush as she bounced sideways toward him, hissing and yowling bloody murder. Carlos chuffed at her and darted in, snatching her up by the scruff of her neck. Then he turned, with a twitch of his abused tail, and prowled up the yard at the two ingrates, glaring feline outrage into the camera the whole way.

Pooch paused, mid-laugh, and backed away as if Cougar was carrying a grenade.

Jensen, however, was trapped on his ass, with no time to scramble to his feet before the big cat got to him. He squeaked as Carlos dropped the kitten on his shoulders, every claw extended. She balanced precariously at his neck just long enough to let out a long indignant howl of outrage in his ear before she fell onto his bent knees. Then she twisted around, and swarmed up his chest like he was a tree, earning yelps of pain the whole way.

In the house they heard a slamming door and a thunder of footsteps coming down the stairs.

"Oh shit, here comes Beth-" Pooch ducked off around the side of the porch steps, booking it, like the cowardly coward he was, leaving Jake alone to face the wrath of both his niece and his lover.

The ferocious look on Beth's face as she came tearing out of the house was even more terrifying than the big cat scowling down at him, or the little one, who was currently scaling Mount Jensen with single minded determination. Beth's oncoming scream had a terrifying Doppler effect.

"Incoming!" Pooch yelped.

"Uncle Jake, you leave my poor kitty alone!" she shouted as she skidded to a halt. She planted her hands on her hips. With her blonde hair and blue eyes flashing with spitfire, she looked just like her mother when she was pissed off at something one of the Losers had done, right down to the fierce set of her mouth.

"Hey- hey wait-" Jensen exclaimed, with an extra yelp as Beth grabbed her kitten off his shoulder with a loud extraction noise of claws yanked from skin and ripping tee shirt. "-*he* threw her at me-"

Beth gave Jake an extra-hard swat on his bleeding forearm, and cuddled the lethal little creature into a furry harmless ball as if waving claws meant nothing. With a sniff, she turned her back on her uncle and spun around to croon at the equally lethal sniper.

"You ok, Tio Cougar?" She ran a gentle hand along his smug-looking face, smoothing back the fur on top of his head and ruffling behind his ears just right, making him chuff at her in reply. Cuddling close with a little curve of tail around her, he damn well purred at her, squinting his eyes in a little feline smile. 

"I'm not letting any of those meanies go picking on MY KITTIES," Beth said firmly. Of course Cougar went completely over the top for that, he rubbed his jaw along her arm, practically knocking her over, the big faker. To add insult to injury, he looked over at Jensen and opened his mouth, sticking his tongue out in a blatant 'na-na-nyaaah' gesture.

Nobody was surprised when the end of Jensen's rather chaotic video showed Beth stalking off, muttering to herself about how mean Uncle JJ and Uncle Pooch were, with the wee little kitten mewing pathetically over her shoulder, complaining about everyone, and the sniper swaggering along in their wake, his tail waving in the air in triumph -because, as everyone knew, Tio Cougar can do no wrong where the ladies are concerned. 


End file.
